every weekend it's torture

[Jena]

hi to all,

so here's my big huge issue for the day......lol

every saturday in my house it is torture with both kids home. the weekends little difficult child is with her dad and older one stays home it is beautiful calm serene a place you wanna be.

the weekends tehir both here it just doens't work at all. they yell at eachother call eachother names, put eachother down i go in help them resolve it when it gets out of hand like either physical or truly hurting one another verbally especially now knowing that little difficult child is severely depressed and then i walk away with a migraine and it happens again in another ten minutes.

so it's now 3 here and nothing is done their room isn't clean we've had older difficult child blow up with crying and screaming at me already i spent an hour with her alone in my room trying to resolve her issue which is she feels that we all treat little difficult child like a baby etc. she has no chores so i said ok let's solve it and stop the drama if you have a problem come Occupational Therapist (OT) me and say hey ma i need ten minutes something is really bothering me and i will always listen and assist you in finding a solution yet this is not the way to go adn i will no longer after today except this form of resolving it by being *****y to me causing drama ruining all of our days etc. then i walk out of room feeling exhausted and stressed but feeling like ok we fixed her issue good.

then it happens again.

same thing occurs every other saturday when their both here it's ridiculous. unless i geton eo fthem littel difficult child out of house and make plans it just doens't work on any level at all. i wind up feeling very emotionally drained tired aggrivated upset that my saturday with them is ruined yet again etc.

i've tried various approaches set a routine in place let's get chores done then everyone gets to go out me taking little difficult child to park older one with her outting. problem is older one is not allowed out unless she turns in her friday sheet on friday night with me stating she went to all classes and an update form teh week from each teacher stating that she's done homework, participated passed tests taht sort of thing.

so this weekend she forgot it again. i said oh well you cannot go out and so she flips out on me.

she is also *****y all of the time. boyfriend and i were talking about it last night how she is that way everyday all the time with not only me but everyone else. it's all about her as if the world revolves around only her with no regard for anyone else at all. her homework and schoolwork's been improving because i implemented the tough love approach to some extent and washed my hands of constantly pushing her so she's taken initiative and pushed herself now.

yet weekends are torture i hate them do not look forward to them are afraid of them and what these two will do. and it is not until i get pressurized enough and flip myself by really yelling and actually scaring them into behaving that it goes calmly. shouldnt' have to be that way at all.

so i'm thinking that maybe therapy for the 3 of us is key as well. not sure how i'm going to pay for that next. sometimes i just have to say why cant just one thing in my life be easy right now why must everything require so much work and effort and be this draining???

jen

 

[smallworld]

If weekends are a problem and it's good for older difficult child to go out, can you find another consequence to the Friday sheet problem?

I know it's a burden for you, but difficult children tend to do better when structure and routines are in place.

 

[Jena]

well i got slight improvement today with the situation i allowed older difficult child to go on her sleepover and yes had another consequence for her lack of friday sheet. and took little difficult child out on her bike, then park, then new shoes and then we came back older one was happy so she left us alone and we cooked dinner together.

i have to find a fix for every other weekend though. i fixed it for today temporarily i need a long term solution to this insanity.

maybe that's it maybe i just need to have a stricter routine in place for saturday mornings, like breakfast then clean our rooms then hw time and then out. boom boom boom see im not a routined person by nature i'm a fly by the seat of your pants person. this will not assist with older one who is giving me grey hair and wrinkles though

 

[Big Bad Kitty]

Have you read "explosive child" yet?

Clean rooms, with the exception of food and clothes that need to be washed, are basket C in my home. I learned that the very VERY hard way.

One thing I have tried, and it works for awhile usually, is to help the child give the room a thorough cleaning. better yet, I clean it myself when she is at school, this way I can de-clutter as well. Then, every night before bedtime, we spend all of 5 minutes getting the room back in order. It never gets real messy.

Until her friend comes over and they trash it

 

[Jena]

your 100% correct. why am i torturing myself. i should do just that once a week go in truly clean it for them, both of them and it's incredibly small also so one thing out of place and it's shot. then every night spend five minutes clean up. i guess i just feel she should be able to handle cleaning her own room and not attacking her sister and her sister understanding where little difficult child is at and not attacking her verbally and putting he rdown when she gets aggrivated.

yet wake up call i can't make them be the way i want them to and hence have to lower my expectations a whole heck of alot i guess.

thanks for waking me up a little. lightbulb moment.

jen

 

[Big Bad Kitty]

Ya know, it took someone else pointing it out to me to have that same light bulb moment before I got it. And I still forget it from time to time.

That is the beauty of this board. You come here, you vent because you are in a bad place, and someone who has just recently been there done that says "hey, why don't you try this?"

Acceptance is key, our kids are wired different. We need to be flexible and creative. They may not be able to do certain things to the degree that we think they should, but every one of them has other wonderful things to offer, don't they?

 

[tammyjh]

Yeah, I've given in on the room issue too and although its not helped difficult child's overall mood issue, its one less battle for me to fight. I just have to close my eyes if I go near her room.lol. I do make sure "she" is getting her dirty clothes to the wash and there is no food allowed in the bedroom. There's also a few other things that just cannot lay around on the floor of the bedroom and I coach her on picking up and throwing out. But for the most part, her barbies, books, papers, cd's, etc...are all over the place. I used to help her clean and that worked ok at times too. Now....not so much.

I also understand what you mean about not being very routine. I have such hard time sticking to one and making one. With the three younger kids and husband's job having unpredictable hours, a strict routine is hard to stick to.

 

[DammitJanet]

Sorry things are rough with the kids. One thing that did jump out to me is that much of this can be stuck under the umbrella of pretty normal sibling behaviors. I honestly thought mine would either kill each other or never speak to each other once they were grown. If you listened to them back then you would think they hated each other. Everything was pick, pick, pick. Add in the male factor and they were constantly fighting.

Amazingly enough now that they are grown they really do all love each other and are pretty good friends. Surprised the heck out of me!

 

[Marguerite]

That Friday sheet thing - is that a school issue? If so, I wouldn't allow it to intrude at home. School issues stay at school. While you can talk about it, maybe try to support her to do homework etc as needed, I wouldn't punish. Failure to do homework etc brings its own consequences from the school.

I agree about the room, too. We've tried to tidy the rooms for them and it's been a disaster. I get tired, they get stressed because they can't find anything. So all I do is grab what dirty clothes I can reach and throw them in the wash. Where possible, I will get them to do their own washing, if they didn't get their clothes into the laundry in time.

But in general - home issues are dealt with at home, school issues are dealt with at school.

Even difficult child 3's correspondence - he is having trouble with English so I asked his teacher to talk to him. We were in at the school on Thursday for a study day, I had arranged for his English teacher to meet with us and give him a lecture on what she expect from him. That way SHE is the ogre he has to please, and not me. But because I was there, I can remind him what she said.

It makes a huge difference when you're not also doing the school's dirty work as well.

Marg